LANSING - Students who like to eat roasted garlic greens can relish their taste buds at a new restaurant opening in the Frandor Shopping Center.
The Better Health Café, located within The Better Health Store, 305 N. Clippert St. in Lansing, is a restaurant with a new edge.
“Our restaurant follows the ‘meal replacement’ concept,” said Jennifer Brooke, the founder and chef of The Better Health Café. “The concept suggests people should not want fast food, but a meal.”
Although not all the food prepared at the restaurant is entirely healthy, the selections are made with mostly organic ingredients and follow the store’s theme.
“We can certainly help people lead healthier lifestyles here,” said Tedd Handelsman, manager of The Better Health Store. “We carry products that are healthy for not just the individual, but healthy to the environment and the planet as well.”
The products chosen don’t contain chemicals the store deems as unhealthy, such as nitrates and monosodium glutamate, also known as MSG, Handelsman said.
“The market perception is that so many more people, both singles and families, have a larger amount of disposable income and eat out more,” Brooke said. “Our goal is that if they can pick up healthy food, they will.”
Lindsay Sweitzer, the deli’s caterer, said the foods they serve are part of a learning process.
“We are still growing, and with that we are also learning,” she said. “Sometimes people are scared of the (unusual) items, but they come back after they taste it, and some end up ordering it almost every day.”
Brooke agrees.
“I’m still learning alternate uses of ingredients, and I am educating myself to be able to offer good-tasting stuff that is healthy,” she said.
The taste may not be an issue for Mike Sternberg, an international relations senior.
“I don’t look out for healthy food to eat, and really I don’t care about it,” he said. “It’s not what I look for when I go to a restaurant.
“Overall quality and the mood I’m in is what I look for, and I’m never in the mood for healthy food,” he said.
Sweitzer said they are targeting a wide array of tastes.
“We want to reach the normal person, and let them realize they don’t have to eat fried, greasy food,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be a burger day.”
The menu selections range from pizza and grinders to unusual combinations.
